Chapter 19: Returning Home

Chapter 19: Returning Home

Li Lin stared blankly at the now-empty corner of the wall. He still held the sampling scraper in his hand, his mind so confused that it felt as though he had forgotten what he had been doing.

Meanwhile, the middle-aged man known as Captain Song, Song Cheng, captain of the Special Operations Bureau’s Second Team, frowned tightly the moment he saw the bloodstain disappear.

Something had vanished from his memory and thoughts, yet a residual impression remained. That lingering impression stimulated his spiritual nature, making him sense that something was wrong.

A murky radiance emerged in Song Cheng’s eyes. He immediately controlled his mind and tried to “solidify” the final trace of that lingering impression within his heart, preventing it from dissipating along with certain memories. Years of professional training proved their worth at this moment.

After hesitating briefly, Li Lin, still holding the scraper, raised his head.

“Chief, I suddenly feel like I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. Was there something here just now?”

“Thought interference!” Song Cheng reacted instantly and warned him. “Check the area’s Depth immediately!”

Without another word, Li Lin set down the sampling tools. He quickly removed a palm-sized black box from his belt, pressed several controls on its surface, then pulled a thin tube from one side.

The needle-like tip of the tube was directly connected to his eyeball.

After completing all this, he raised his head and slowly surveyed the surroundings with the eye connected to the tube.

A faint humming sound came from the black metal box. Liquid seemed to flow slowly through the tube.

Li Lin’s eye gradually became stained black.

And in his spiritual vision, everything on this old street began to take on a black-and-white tone.

“Depth L-0. No Other Domain reaction,” Li Lin reported while observing. “I also don’t see anything that escaped from an Other Domain, or any residual contamination.”

Song Cheng frowned and glanced at the box in Li Lin’s hand.

It was a portable depth scanner. Its detection range and sensitivity could not compare to the standard suitcase-sized models, but even the portable version should have been capable of detecting Depth fluctuations within its range.

He was certain that something had genuinely interfered with his memory and thoughts just now.

That residual “impression” was still being forcibly preserved in his mind.

Something strange was definitely affecting him here.

Yet...

The equipment could not detect it.

Just as he was about to tell Li Lin to adjust the scanner’s detection mode, the younger man suddenly seemed to notice something.

Li Lin stared fixedly toward a spot at the end of the street.

One eye, connected to the tube, was black as ink. Within that profound darkness reflected another layer of vision.

Between the black-and-white streets and buildings, he could vaguely see a trace of color.

The color was extremely faint and blurry, impossible to identify, yet enormous in scale.

After concentrating for a long while, he finally managed to roughly determine the outline of that nearly transparent shape.

Its size was approximately equal to a house.

“Captain Song, there’s something ahead, but it’s very blurry. It looks like a house,” he said while cautiously walking forward. “The Depth reading is still zero, and there’s no contamination response. I’m almost right in front of it now. Can you sense anything?”

Song Cheng followed behind him, gripping a badge in his pocket with his right hand, ready to intervene at any moment if something went wrong.

At the same time, he shook his head.

“My spiritual nature isn’t warning me.”

Li Lin stopped at a certain point.

He felt he had reached the vague patch of color.

After a brief hesitation, he slowly extended a hand forward.

Suddenly, a shrill buzz erupted from the black metal box.

Several sharp Crack! Crack! sounds followed.

Accompanied by a plume of smoke, the depth scanner ceased functioning.

The tube connected to his eyeball instantly detached.

A mud-black substance flowed out from within it, only to rapidly evaporate and dissipate upon contact with the air.

The sudden soreness and stabbing pain in his eye made Li Lin blurt out, “Holy shit...”

He threw away the black box, which had already begun burning his hand, and instinctively reached to rub the eye that had been connected to it.

Seeing this, Song Cheng immediately stepped forward and pressed a hand near Li Lin’s temple.

“Don’t rub it! It’ll be fine in a moment!”

Li Lin instantly froze in place.

He felt a wave of heat spreading near his temple, while the discomfort in his eye rapidly subsided.

A moment later, he recovered and saw the depth scanner still smoking on the ground.

“...The Bureau will reimburse this, right?”

“They’ll reimburse it.”

“Thank God. That scared the hell out of me.”

Li Lin immediately relaxed, then turned uncertainly toward the direction where he had just extended his hand.

Yet there was only a small open space there.

At the far end of the open space stood a wall.

Someone had covered it with chaotic graffiti, using colorful spray paint to depict doors, windows, houses, trees, stones, and similar images.

He waved his hand forward.

It touched nothing.

“There’s definitely something here. The instrument detected it just now, but it broke before I could confirm anything,” Li Lin muttered. “Before it failed, the Depth reading was still L-0.”

“...Let’s return to the Bureau first.” After two seconds of consideration, Song Cheng made a decision. “I’ll submit a report to the Council when we get back. This place definitely needs to be monitored for a while. We can’t rule out the possibility that it’s some kind of unregistered Other Domain. We’ll probably need large-scale equipment and a specialized Deep Diver to handle it. Also, is your eye alright?”

“...If it isn’t, can I get half a day off?”

“No. We’re short-staffed.”

“Then it’s fine. I’ll just use some eye drops when I get back.”

Song Cheng nodded.

Li Lin carefully bent down and picked up the remains of the depth scanner, which was no longer smoking.

The two then returned one after the other to where they had parked their electric scooters.

Li Lin turned the key.

The scooter’s LCD display flashed briefly, then went dark.

He froze.

Looking up, he met Captain Song’s gaze.

The same realization was in both their eyes.

“My scooter’s broken... Yours too?”

Song Cheng silently nodded.

“...Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

Song Cheng gently shook his head and spoke in a low voice.

“The people at the Academy have a special term for explaining this phenomenon.”

Li Lin paused briefly, then recalled something he had once read in certain documents.

“The machine spirit isn’t happy.”

“The machine spirit got scared.”

The two spoke at the same time, yet not quite in unison.

Then they each fell silent for a moment.

This time, they spoke in perfect synchronization.

“You’re remembering it wrong.”

“We’ll discuss it later.” Song Cheng waved a hand and began slowly pushing his scooter away. “Let’s get out of this place first.”

Li Lin pushed his scooter behind him.

“...Chief, we’re seriously pushing them all the way back?”

“What else? You planning to abandon your scooter?”

“Doesn’t the Bureau have a small truck or something? If not, call over that electric three-wheeler from Logistics downstairs... Pushing these back is going to kill me...”

“Quit complaining. You’re young. Is your stamina really worse than mine?”

The two veteran Special Operations Bureau agents pushed their scooters farther and farther away.

Their figures gradually disappeared at the entrance to Wutong Road.

Yu Sheng had become very familiar with the boundless darkness surrounding him.

Lately, he had been coming here rather frequently.

Floating within this dark chaos, he even felt as though he had returned home.

Irene’s scream still echoed in his ears.

He thought that the sight of him pushing open the door, covered in blood with a hole in his abdomen, only to collapse and die inside the house, had probably frightened the doll within the painting badly.

It seemed that even Irene, despite being a cursed object, did not possess especially strong psychological resilience.

And that only made Yu Sheng look forward even more to what would happen after he “returned.”

When he re-entered the world of the living and appeared before Irene again...

What kind of reaction would Miss Doll have?

Would she still remember the scene of him entering the house and dying?

Floating in the darkness, the image of Hu Li appeared before Yu Sheng’s eyes.

Recalling what had happened in Nightfall Valley, he remembered that when Hu Li first saw him in the ruined temple, she had completely forgotten the incident where she had headbutted him to death.

Although she somehow remembered it again later, at the beginning she had genuinely forgotten his death entirely.

Yu Sheng did not know the reason for that forgetting.

Nor was he sure whether the issue lay with himself or with Hu Li.

After all, that fox girl’s mind seemed quite chaotic already. Forgetting things suddenly was not unusual for her.

But if Irene also failed to remember the scene of him dying inside the house...

Then Yu Sheng could basically confirm that the problem lay with him.

There was no way to judge the passage of time while floating in the darkness.

So after briefly organizing everything he had experienced so far, Yu Sheng emptied his mind, allowing his taut nerves a chance to rest while patiently waiting for the darkness to end.

Then he felt that familiar sensation of falling.

He felt himself rapidly “returning” to the mortal world.

Already prepared, Yu Sheng immediately concentrated and attempted to capture his perception during the instant he crossed that “boundary.”

Familiar scenes appeared before his eyes.

A vague guiding force seemed to be directing him to “fall” toward a specific destination.

He struggled to distinguish among the countless images flashing before him.

Before he could grasp anything, one of the scenes suddenly enlarged before his eyes.

Wutong Road 66.

The living room just beyond the entrance.

Yu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes.

The familiar furnishings of his home came into view.

In the dining room beside the living room, the ancient and exquisite oil painting stood quietly upon the dining table.

Irene, within the painting, broke the silence.

“Yu Sheng! You’re finally back!”